Growing up Co-Op

by Clark Case
November 17, 2021

Welcome to the Dixon Cooperative Market’s new Website! Great thanks to Jeff Spicer and Spicer Digital for his help in getting this going. We hope you find it helpful and informative as you navigate our local food distribution effort.

The Coop is a community based food store that opened in 2006 in 500 square feet we rented from the Embudo Valley Library. We’ve grown to become an integral part of the Embudo Valley economy, providing over a million dollars worth of food to our over four hundred household members and all of the greater community. We employ over twenty locals and now operate out of our 1100 square foot building bringing a large selection of local and organic produce, grocery goods, local consignment items, and a popular deli that offers a menu of delicious sandwiches and pizzas all made in house.

The Coop is directed by a five member Board of Directors who are members of the Coop and represent our general membership in decision making and financial oversight. The Board is elected at the end of January, two members in even numbered years and three in odd. If you have been a member in good standing at the Coop for a full month before the election, you are eligible to run for the board. We have been blessed with many dedicated and talented board members in our history, each one bringing their expertise and enthusiasm to the operation. We are currently seeking applicants for the January 2022 election, consider throwing your hat in if you are a current member. We encourage diversity on our board. We would love to have our board and staff as diverse as the community it serves, therefore we encourage all community members to apply for board positions as well as job opportunities when they arise.

In the next year we hope so see some new exciting possibilities come to fruition. We are looking at building an addition in order to create adequate cold storage and back stock space. Our growth has required this expansion, we can only sell what we have in stock and our sales have gotten to the point we can’t keep enough in stock without more space to store it. We are currently applying for funding from community development grant opportunities to see this plan happen. Hopefully, in a couple years our new warehouse facility will be part of the backdrop of the Library’s new park and Community Center development. Another potential development in the store is our budding relationship with the Pueblo of Picuris. As they open up their new facility, they have asked us to partner with them to bring fresh food to the Peñasco Valley. We will be ordering and delivering a selection of our distributors’ goods to the new Travel Center on Highway 75 in Picuris. The facility has been put on hold due to Covid, but we are excited to have the opportunity to supply them with good whole food in the coming year.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our shoppers for responding so positively to the changes that have occurred at the store in the last several months. The challenges that we have faced in the last couple years have created new ways that we work, shop and communicate, and I hope the Coop’s adaptations have helped the people in our little town better survive during the pandemic and the economic turmoil it has created. We have struggled to maintain a workforce that keeps our deli open seven days a week. At this point we are able to stay open, so keep trying to place your orders. As we keep adding the needed staff we will be better equipped to bring you the food you love. This year we have been concentrating on bringing good produce to shoppers. The selection of local produce this season was quite incredible, at one time more than 40 items in our produce section were grown within 25 miles of the store. Our local selection would compete with any store of any size in the area. Even out of season, we have been able to get a good selection of organic produce from a new supplier to us, Veritable Vegetable. The response from you has been exactly what we hoped. Keep shopping with us and we’ll keep bringing the food you need and want.

The above photo was taken by Linda Griffith in November of 2005... the store would've been open for a few months at this point. Sitting with our store's current manager and instigator are the Aby girls. One of whom now works at the store!